Karolyne Natasha‘s Broken Waters‘ cinematography is reminiscent of past Cancon which is appropriate as it depicts, well, decades past. Specifically, it depicts 1981, a time when things weren’t too bad for women, earning the right for paid leave. The film’s intertitles, though, say that Canada had a long way to go for women’s abortion rights. One can say the same about neuroatypical infrastructure. This is going to figure into the time when two Franco-Ontarians’ lives intersect.

The film takes us into the mind of Isabelle (Natasha), under involuntary hold after she kidnaps someone else’s child. She’s under the care of an Anglo doctor until a Franco-Ontarian psychiatric doctor catches sight of her. That doctor is Marguerite (Valérie Descheneaux), who prefers empathy and talk therapy instead of simply drugging her patients. They seem like each others’ fit except that Marguerite is the kind of doctor who takes her work home.

In depicting the diptych of two complex women, Broken Waters has its share of sequences taking viewers to characters’ dreams. None of these sequences solve the problem that is Isabelle but they take us 90% of the way. It spoon feeds its information, one of its aspects that take a few points away from it. Despite that, it asks viewers, successfully, not to make the kind of assumptions that the Anglo characters inadvertently make.

Broken Waters also isn’t the subtlest when it comes to imparting its message but I’m partial to it. It takes talk therapy’s side, obviously, but it shows some nuances between the debate between it and medicinal therapy. The doctor taking medicinal therapy’s side, an Anglo obviously, has some valid points, that talking feels stereotypical. But still, even while taking big sacrifices, it’s still a good idea that finding an illness source is key to its cure.